


Lea and Emilie's First Annual Picnic Potluck

by seasparks



Series: Leamilie love stories [3]
Category: CrossCode (Video Game)
Genre: CrossCode Spoilers, F/F, Sergey bullying appreciation club, Trans Side Character, everyone wants Sergey/Satoshi to happen but they're dweebs, so many croissants, yes we're still putting the spoiler warning in the notes too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25438444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasparks/pseuds/seasparks
Summary: Lea and Emilie invite their friends to a picnic to celebrate some recent quality-of-life improvements for Evotars, catch up, and even make a few surprise announcements.
Relationships: Lea/Emilie
Series: Leamilie love stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1841182
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Lea and Emilie's First Annual Picnic Potluck

**Author's Note:**

> This has MAJOR spoilers in it! Do not read it if you haven't beat the game and don't want to be spoiled!

Emilie paced anxiously around a blanket laid out on the ground while Lea sat in the shade of a nearby tree and watched. Today was an important milestone for the couple.

They had invited their friends to a group picnic.

Such an occasion would be unremarkable for most normal couples, but these two were anything but. As an Evotar, Lea didn't have a human body to return to, and their activities in CrossWorlds were somewhat limited. That's why they were having a picnic potluck in the first place: to celebrate some recent quality-of-life improvements made to CrossWorlds that gave their relationship—and Evotars' lives in general—a little bit more freedom.

Suddenly, Emilie perked up: she noticed their first guest approaching with a box under one arm. "Lea!!" she shouted at her partner, and pointed at the man. Lea broke out into a wide grin and started jumping and waving at the man, who waved back.

"Lea!" shouted Lea excitedly.

"Emilie!" shouted Emilie, just as excitedly.

Sergey's avatar exactly matched his real-life appearance: slightly-messy brown hair, a green turtleneck sweater, and a pair of glasses that he cleaned periodically out of nervous habit despite their inability to fog up or otherwise get dirty—one of the perks of piloting an avatar around in CrossWorlds. He never actually played the game he had spent most of his adult life working on, but after his involvement in the Vermillion Wasteland incident, he had been granted the first of a wave of avatars intended not for gaming, but for research.

"Hello there, you two! How are you doing?" he said, sitting down on the picnic blanket. "Am I really the first one here?"

"Of course you are, nerd boy," Emilie teased. "You're always the first one. To _everything_. What's in the box?"

"I'm glad you asked! Given the, ah, location of this event, I thought it suitable to bring chocolate croissants. I made them myself!" said Sergey with a wink. He opened the box, revealing several dozen fresh chocolate croissants, as advertised.

"Emilie!!" shouted Emilie.

Sergey set down the box and started cleaning his glasses. "Yes, you are," he said.

Emilie blushed. "Oh, I, uh, I mean... _Sacre bleu!_ Or whatever." Lea laughed behind her.

"You know, we were hoping that your verbosity would rub off on Lea, not the other way around," said Sergey. He put his glasses back on and grinned. "Love works in mysterious ways."

"Yeah, whatever, Lea's Dad," Emilie said, pouting. "So, what's the recipe?"

"Oh, you know. Some flour, some water," Sergey began, counting off the ingredients on his hand, "some chocolate, and...oh, about a year of revolutionary R&D by a hand-picked staff of some of the most brilliant scientists in the word, and a truly preposterous amount of money. I assure you, they taste quite convincing."

"Yeah, okay, nerd boy," said Emilie mock-skeptically. "If I bite into one of these and taste beef stroganoff one more time I'm starting a duel with you on the spot."

Until very recently, all drinks in CrossWorlds tasted like either water or pink lemonade, and all food tasted like beef stroganoff. With the creation of the Evotar research project, however, a whole host of quality-of-life concerns for Evotars—and by extension, avatars in general—went from furtive side-projects to top priorities for the new Evotar R&D Division. And as the employable person with the most subject-matter expertise and the most personal ties to Evotars, Sergey was the head of that division.

"I'm afraid research avatars can't participate in duels, o future stepdaughter of mine," Sergey teased, making Emilie's eyes widen. "We aren't built for combat, you see."

Emilie recovered her composure quickly and shot back, "We'll see about that, nerd boy. I know a guy on the inside."

Lea sat down and leaned against Emilie, who automatically put an arm around her. "No fighting," she commanded.

"Hmph." Emilie stuck her tongue out at Lea, then gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"HOLERÖ!!" came a sudden shout from behind them, making Lea and Emilie jump and cling to each other out of fear. "Gyahahaha! Glad to see you two are as lovey-dovey as ever!"

"WHY?!" Lea shouted back, glaring at the newcomers.

"Lukas. Lucina." Emilie's expression was ice-cold, but she couldn't hold back her laughter for long. "How've you been, O Dark Lord & Lady?"

Lea got up to hug them in greeting. Like Shizuka and Lea, Lukas and his Evotar copy had quickly shown that just starting as a copy of someone doesn't mean you're the same person. Coming to terms with being an Evotar also resulted in finding her own identity, and Lucina the Evotar traded in her old name & gender for ones that fit her better using the same simple, streamlined process available to regular players.

"We've been great!" said Lukas.

"And not only that, but we brought..." continued Lucina.

"Beef stroganoff stuffed croissants!!" they announced in tandem, pulling boxes out from behind their backs to reveal croissants that did indeed smell exactly like beef stroganoff.

Unfortunately for everyone else, the duo continued to share the same sense of humor.

"NO," said Emilie, a devastated look on her face. "YOU DIDN'T." Before they could respond, a fence sprung up around her, Lea, Lukas, and Lucina, along with a banner reading "2v2 DUEL". "C'mon, Lea," she said, standing up. "Let's show them the price of their treachery!"

"Pentafist Emilie!" came another new voice ringing out from a nearby tree. "I see you have finally taken up the great cause of Justice!" Apollo somersaulted out of the tree's branches and landed gracefully on the ground.

"Hey all," Joern said from the tree trunk. "I tried to talk him out of it, but...well, you know Polly." He sounded resigned to his fate, but the glimmer in his eyes said otherwise.

"NO! FIGHTING!!" Lea shouted once again. She pointedly looked away from Emilie and crossed her arms.

"But... _chérie_! This is a crime!" implored Emilie. She tried to catch Lea's eyes, but her girlfriend turned away again. "Grasshead is right, for once!" ("See, Joern? I _am_ right!") She moved again to where Lea was looking, but again Lea turned away, slowly rotating in a circle as Emilie chased her around. "It's like the bugs of food, Lea!!"

The couple kept spinning and chasing until they couldn't keep up the act any more and collapsed in a pile of giggles onto the ground. The duel zone went away soon after. " _Oui, oui,_ you win, I give up!" Emilie announced through fits of laughter.

"Good!" declared Lea in a futile attempt to sound stern. She reached over and kissed her girlfriend.

As Lea pulled away and started to stand up, Emilie pulled her back down into another, deeper kiss, which she was more than happy to indulge. They stayed there, hands clasped, kissing on the impossibly soft ground, until they were brought back to their surroundings by the sound of someone clearing their throat above them.

"Hey, lovebirds. Maybe make out on someone else's time?" Shizuka towered over them, a stern look on her face. "Or do I need to knock some sense into you?"

Lea hurriedly stood up and bowed formally in greeting. "N-no...fighting...?"

Shizuka grinned. "C'mere, dork," she said, and she pulled Lea into a bear hug. She turned her attention to Emilie, still getting up from the ground. "You too, dork-in-law."

Emilie's cheeks flared red. "Th-that's...I'm not...I mean..." she stammered as she joined the other two in a big.

After long enough for Lea and Emilie to be glad avatars didn't actually have lungs or need to breathe, Shizuka released them and motioned to her brother, who had also arrived. "Alright, Satoshi, I got their attention. Do...whatever it is you were planning to do."

Satoshi wheeled a covered cart forward and launched into a clearly much-rehearsed speech. "Welcome, Evotars and avatars! What I have to show to you is the fruit of countless hours of mind-melting research! While R&D toiled away under the exemplary lead of my dear friend Sergey," he cast a glance and a wink at Sergey, who blushed at the praise, "on how to give you the broadest range of sensory experiences possible, I worked on how best to utilize that gift!"

"He's been really bored," Shizuka stage whispered to Lea. "Evotars still can't technically legally be employed, so he's been throwing himself into projects like this." She paused, then added with a sad smile, "Not exactly what you'd expect after cheating death. But I guess it's alright."

Meanwhile, Satoshi's monologue continued. "My friends, you are all familiar with the continent on which most of CrossWorlds takes place: the affectionately nicknamed Croissant. What I bring to you today is a deconstructed version of that same dish whose flavor I hope will bring you as much joy as this game has, or," and he made eye contact with Lea and Lucina, his expression softening, "enough joy to help you momentarily let go of the pain it has brought."

A beat passed, and his showmanship returned. "Presenting, for the very first time: the Croissaren't!" He pulled the cover off of the cart in front of him and revealed some things that were probably, by some abstract definition, technically croissants.

The gathering went quiet for a moment, the only sound Joern frantically whispering to Apollo, "See? I _told_ you we shouldn't have brought Justice Croissants or whatever! We should have brought muffins. Everyone loves muffins."

"Sure, but I love puns more! Gyahahaha!" shouted Lucina, and the tension broke in a ripple of laughter across the group.

His speech concluded, Satoshi nervously bowed and walked over to Sergey, motioning to Shizuka to join them. "So...how'd I do?" he asked, showing no trace of the bombastic showman he was just moments earlier.

"Splendidly," answered Sergey immediately. "Though, I personally think it would have been even better received had you just been yourself, rather than whatever stage persona you put on." He put his arm around Satoshi's back and tentatively patted him on the shoulder. To his surprise, Satoshi leaned into him and sighed contentedly.

"Yes, well," Satoshi replied, "as my fellow Evotars have demonstrated, just being myself may prove more difficult than it sounds."

Shizuka punched his exposed shoulder. "Dummy. You're still my brother, remember? And no matter what, you'll always be my sibling. That's good enough for me."

With everyone finally there, Emilie and Lea set about passing plates out to everyone. Once that was done and everyone was seated on the picnic blanket, she walked in front of everyone, materialized a box, and stood on it. Lea shot her a confused glance, but Emilie just smiled and winked. "Now that everyone's here, I have an announcement of my own before you all start eating." They quieted down and gave her their full attention.

"As you all know, Lea and I met on my first day playing CrossWorlds. We bumped into each other on the bridge before the tutorial dungeon, and before we knew it we were friends, racing dungeons, running through the world together, and just enjoying each other's company." Emilie grinned sheepishly. "What none of you know is that the first thing I thought when I saw her was ' _Sacre bleu,_ that's a cute avatar! I wonder if the person behind it is just as cute!'" She stepped down and reached for Lea's hand, then pulled her up to stand together on the box. "And as you can plainly see, I was wrong: she's even cuter!" The crowd laughed, and Lea blushed scarlet.

"She was more than a friend to me almost immediately," Emilie continued. "She was so easy to trust, to open up to. At first I just thought that was part of the magic of CrossWorlds, but it wasn't like that with anyone else. I wanted to get closer to her, to learn more about her, and...well, I eventually did, and I was so afraid at first. But even then, I never doubted that she was a real person. How could I? She's..." Her voice started to waver. "Fuck, she's Lea, you know?" She finally faltered, her rising emotions forcing her to pause and compose herself.

Lea reached out and squeezed Emilie's hand. "Lea," she agreed, holding back her own happy tears. She didn't know for sure what was going on, but she had a guess.

Emilie laughed and returned the hand squeeze. "Yeah, you get it! Lea!"

Once she had calmed down enough to continue, Emilie produced a small box and held it in front of her, still closed. "Somehow, a few of you almost spoiled this surprise without even knowing it was coming!" ("Literally anyone could have seen this coming months ago. Even the NPCs," Shizuka whispered to Sergey, who nodded in agreement.) "Lucky for you, I planned to do this today anyway. If any of you had ruined this..." She cracked her knuckles melodramatically. "Well, I wouldn't do anything, because I promised Lea no fighting. And, well...this is all about promises I want to make and keep with her."

Emilie bent down on one knee facing Lea and opened the box, revealing a small, oddly shiny ring. The red warning box that popped up in everyone's UI confirmed what was odd about it: it was a real ring from outside the game, not made from instant matter. Lea covered her mouth with her hands, tears of joy welling up in her eyes.

"Lea, _ma chérie._ You are my love, my light, my world. I don't know how we'll make this work, but I know that I want to more than anything else in the world. We have each other, and we have the best friends anyone could ask for. We'll figure it out." She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "Lea, will you marry me?"

As soon as the last word left Emilie's mouth Lea lunged forward and threw her arms around her, nodding her head as fast as she could. "Yes," she managed to gasp out before they were both overcome with tears.

They knelt on the box, foreheads pressed against one another's, until Emilie remembered she had one thing left to do. She reached behind her and took Lea's hand, gently guiding it between them and coaxing it open. She kissed Lea's palm first, then each fingertip, then turned Lea's hand over and slid the ring onto her finger, giving it another, longer kiss before looking back up.

Their friends erupted into cheers, and this time, nobody cleared their throat to call the new fiancées back from their own private world.

**Author's Note:**

> \- you know it from anime and manga and crossworlds: it's beef stroganoff  
> \- if Emilie isn't at least partly inspired by Hibiki Symphogear we will make and eat vegan beef stroganoff. (it doesn't have to be beef, after all)  
> \- there are a LOT of problems with having a real, non-instant-matter ring that you want to keep on you and never ever lose in CrossWorlds, but Emilie doesn't care about that and in fact didn't even realize it until Sergey brought it up later. it's fine, they'll work something out.  
> \- Sergey and Satoshi are STILL not dating and it is EVERYONE'S goal to fix that, ideally by bullying Sergey as much as possible
> 
> EDIT: we changed part of this a fair amount (a couple paragraphs starting at "She was more than a friend to me almost immediately") a couple hours after upload, so if you remember that part being different, you're probably right! we like this version a lot better.


End file.
